Parker P44 Tremolo Arm

[Bachinin83]

Hi everyone,

I recently acquired a Parker P44 with Piezo, and it's an amazing guitar. I'm thrilled with its ergonomics and playability. However, the instrument came without a tremolo arm. The arm from my Strat doesn't fit, nor does the one from my MusicMan JPX. Could anyone advise me on which tremolo arm would be suitable for my guitar? The serial number is 06051805.

Thanks in advance!

[mmmguitar]

Update: A subsequent post reveals that the blow information is incorrect; with Wilkinson not being the hardware OEM for this particular iteration of P44.

Welcome, @Bachinin83. I know your P44 has a Wilkinson bridge with a common arm diameter which other owners have replaced theirs with, but I don't own a P44 to confirm with certainty that it uses their 5mm push-in arm. While we're waiting on someone else to weigh in, you may want to shoot Wilkinson Support an email here asking which of their currently produced trem arms will fit your P44.

[Bachinin83]

Thank you very much for your reply. I contacted Wilkinson and they said it wasn't their tremolo, which surprised me a lot. I'll post a photo of the guitar, maybe we'll define a tremolo model together.

Oh. Can’t upload photo. So here is a link:

[Fox]

Hi everyone,

I recently acquired a Parker P44 with Piezo, and it's an amazing guitar. I'm thrilled with its ergonomics and playability. However, the instrument came without a tremolo arm. The arm from my Strat doesn't fit, nor does the one from my MusicMan JPX. Could anyone advise me on which tremolo arm would be suitable for my guitar? The serial number is 06051805.

Thanks in advance!

If I'm not mistaken, most Parkers use a 3/16 diameter on their tremolos (4.82mm, 0.1875"). If you are capable of some simple fabrication, you can acquire some stainless steel stock of that size and bend it a bit to make your own tremolo arm.

https://www.onlinemetals.com/en/buy/sta ... h/pid/2012

[mmmguitar]

I fixed the photo attachment - The issue was the photo exceeding the 3mb limit.

I contacted Wilkinson and they said it wasn't their tremolo, which surprised me a lot.

That surprised me, as well. So I dug a little deeper:

It turns out there was a point where Wilkinson was the supplier for the VS100 tremolo used in the P44 pictured above (which Fishman calls a VS-50P) - However, your style of bridge was referred to only as a "fulcrum bridge" (no brand) in ad copy for whichever production iteration didn't use Wilkinson hardware. This change in OEMs means that nearly every listing I found for P44s with your model trem erroneously claims the hardware to be WIlkinson. I also saw that Parker variously used Gibson-style Tune-O-Matic and Nitefly trems on the P44 series.

At 2:50 in the below video, we can see that the arm is the same push-in style as used on the Fly (which, as Fox said and my caliper confirmed, is 3/16" or 4.76mm diameter). I'm still hoping another P44 owner will weigh in to confirm whether it's indeed the same arm, or some 5mm OEM version produced just for that no-brand bridge.

[Bachinin83]

Good afternoon. I purchased a 5mm tremolo lever and it fits the size of the hole in the bridge. At the same time, it does not lock into it in any way. Is this normal? I thought there was a mechanism that locks the lever in place. But in the video you can see that the lever is used without a ball at the end.

Is American standard strat tremolo arm same size 3/16?

[mmmguitar]

I thought there was a mechanism that locks the lever in place. But in the video you can see that the lever is used without a ball at the end.

I'm afraid can't find a photo of your guitar's particular trem which shows a hex set screw for the compression sleeve the arm inserts into (as the other Parkers do) - That's typically how push-in arms work. If you don't have a screw hole on the outside of the bridge to adjust the sleeve, perhaps it's on the underside of the bridge? I'd feel awfully silly if the example of the bar I found in that video is a Fly arm someone mistakenly bought for a guitar with a threaded bar insert in the trem block. You can also slightly bend the end of the arm which inserts into the bridge; so that it's a tighter fit.

Is American standard strat tremolo arm same size 3/16?

All I could find was that American strat arms come in either 3/16" or 1/4" diameters.

Oh - Earlier, I forgot to congratulate you on that awesome gold color.

[Bachinin83]

Thank you very much. Originally it was a standard body under lacquer. But I thought it would be cool to emphasize the individuality of this extraordinary guitar and repainted it in metallic gold.

Found the tightening bolt and solved the lever locking issue. Thanks so much for your help. Glad to be part of the community.

[mmmguitar]

Happy to help (or at least attempt to). And the community is happy to have you.

Found the tightening bolt and solved the lever locking issue.

Where *is* the tightening bolt it on your particular bridge? It isn't clear from the photos or Youtube videos I found. Also: That you refinished the guitar makes the color all that more impressive. Bravo!